


asymmetry

by vifetoile



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Friends, Complete, F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29383515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vifetoile/pseuds/vifetoile
Summary: Soulmate AU where when you turn thirteen, a black mark on your skin foretells where your soulmate will touch you when next you meet. Except, Mai doesn’t have a soul mark.
Relationships: Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 70





	asymmetry

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Avatar. I don't own soulmates. I don't even own the concept of soul-mark-colors-in-when-you-meet-your-soulmate. 
> 
> "Be the change you wish to see in the fanfic archive." Enjoy!

“Where are you going, Mai?” asked Ty Lee, who was practicing her evening stretches. 

Mai might not have answered, except that out of the corner of her eye, she saw Azula turn from her mirror and regard her. The princess was interested in the answer. Mai briefly considered evasion, a white lie, or the unvarnished, vulnerable truth-- and the truth won. It was easiest to remember. 

“I’m going to find Zuko,” she said. 

They were in the royal palace of Ba Sing Se. A realm of emerald and jade. Twenty-four hours ago, Azula had laid conquest to the city. She said that she and Zuko, together, had killed the Avatar and driven off his cronies. Twenty-four hours had included sleep, breakfast, training, lunch, writing missives to the Fire Nation, more training, afternoon tea-- it had included all manner of things  _ except  _ seeing Zuko. 

The knowledge that Zuko was near burned inside of Mai. She felt restless, like there was a bird fluttering madly in her chest. 

Zuko had been Mai’s first friend, when they were children. They had played together, trained together. They had sought each other out-- many palace soirees had found the two of them, hidden under a vermillion banner, holding hands and talking quietly. More than that, they had trusted each other. When Zuko’s lungs betrayed him, it was Mai that he let near, to read stories or just keep company. When Mai needed to cry or rage, it was Zuko who kept watch for her with his back turned, so she could cry or rage in peace. 

Even when years had passed and Mai had been folded into Azula’s circle, she and Zuko had never been strangers. In silence or in smiles, there was always a closeness there.

But-- that had been before Zuko’s banishment. 

Mai’s mother had forbidden her from attending the Agni Kai. It had all happened so fast-- Mai hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye before Zuko was exiled.

Three years of knowing Zuko was  _ out there _ , somewhere, seeing the world, alienated from all he knew and loved. Three years, and Mai had done her best to adjust. 

And now, in Ba Sing Se, on the other side of the far continent, Zuko was nearby. Three and a half years-- didn’t even get to say goodbye-- and now he was in the same palace of emerald and jade. 

It burned Mai up.

He was  _ so near _ .

Mai had made up her mind about a few things. She didn’t want to be surprised by Zuko. She didn’t want Azula arranging some “accidental” meeting-- which, knowing Azula, would be guaranteed to be horrible. Mai didn’t want to meet Zuko for the first time on the ship bound for home. 

She wanted to control how she met the prince. That way she could control her emotions. 

And there was one other reason…

“You’re being unusually proactive,” said Azula. “I was going to have him dine with us tonight, but suit yourself if you’re in a hurry. Be sure to mention your disappointment to him,” she added, as she turned back to her mirror. “I don’t want Zuzu getting his hopes up.” 

Mai closed the door behind her and let out a sigh. Of course Azula had to mention Mai’s “disappointment.” If Azula would not get her planned awkward first meeting at dinner, the princess must get in a barb  _ somewhere _ . 

Mai started walking. She felt keenly conscious of her body at the moment. She was taller than when Zuko had last seen her. She was skinny, flat as a board, with a face full of sharp angles. Not pretty in the slightest, especially when compared to...

Mai gave herself a shake. Look at her, worrying about  _ prettiness _ . What was she turning into? 

She lengthened her stride. The sooner she saw Zuko, the sooner these stupid worries could be put to bed. 

Her right hand picked at the long sleeve of her left hand. Summer was coming, and these robes were heavy. But the robes would protect her, she thought. Robes would help stifle her feelings. They would cover her failure. As long as she hid as much of her body as she could, Zuko would never see…

Zuko would never see that she didn’t have a soul mark. 

Mai had to stop herself in a hallway and breathe deeply to keep herself composed. 

“ _ How long do you think you can hide that _ ?” sneered a voice in her head. 

Amazing, how the voice of Mai’s self-hatred sounded so much like Azula.

Mai decided the indoors were overrated. She pushed through the nearest door, and kept walking and pushing through until she reached a garden. She strode onto the garden paths, passing koi ponds and twisting pine trees. She finally slowed by a towering hydrangea bush. The flowers were pink, bleeding into purple. Sunset colors. A stone bench was helpfully placed below, and Mai thought, with a twist to her heart, that this was probably a favored spot for young lovers of the Earth Kingdom aristocracy.

She sank onto the bench and let herself remember. No one was around. There was no one to think her weak or immature while the memory took its course through her. 

Mai had woken up on the morning of her thirteenth birthday with her heart pounding. She had lain in bed and thought, Today’s the day my soul mark appears. She’d thought of Zuko’s face-- at least, her face as she had last seen him, before his banishment-- and slipped out of bed. 

The girl had stood before the biggest mirror she owned. She had looked over her hands, palm and knuckle, and then her arms. She studied her reflection carefully, but there was no trace of a soul mark that she could see. 

She had finally allowed her mother into her bedroom, to help her look all over Mai’s body, but they found nothing. There should be a black mark, to foretell the first place where Mai’s soulmate would touch her. But there was nothing. 

The disappointment was bitter. Mai should have been the first, between herself, Ty Lee, and Azula, to receive her soul mark, but instead… 

Her heart ached. Her head formed two terrible, mutually exclusive certainties. One said, Mai simply had no soulmate. She was an unlovable freak of a girl and her future was empty before her.

The word of her condition got out. The entire Fire Nation aristocracy assumed that Mai had no soulmate, and pitied her accordingly. 

The second certainty said: Zuko might have been her soulmate, but she would never see him again. 

She never spoke that thought out loud.

She swallowed the shame, she swallowed the sadness and confusion. She perfected her cold, apathetic mask. Pity? She would not give the gossips anything to pity. Her mother had commanded her to control her feelings: well, Mai controlled hers with a vengeance. With red silk and black, she covered herself as much as she could. And when Azula’s soul mark appeared, several months later (a black stripe on her right foot, like she might kick someone) the hubbub and speculation around  _ that  _ finally drowned out any scandal around Mai. 

And Mai’s tragedy had political ramifications. Her father had no qualms about moving the family to New Ozai, when he was made governor. After all, Mai had no soulmate, no prospects connected to the Capital or Homeland. Mai resigned herself to boredom and solitude, lightened only by Azula and Ty Lee’s arrival.

That had been  _ that _ , until the day Azula returned to base camp and calmly told Ty Lee and Mai, “Tomorrow, we will make for the Great Drill. Also, I ran into Zuko and my uncle.” 

Mai had not let that touch her. Nothing could touch her. She was Mai, a Capricorn who could throw knives and who had no soul mark. These were the facts of her cold, untouched life.

And yet today, Zuko was nearby somewhere, and Mai burned with the knowledge of it. 

The sun was lowering in the west, filling the air with hydrangea colors. Mai got to her feet. She had let the memory pass through her and all was calm again. She took two steps around the massive hydrangea bush and almost collided with a tall young man. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, but Mai stared into his face. His left eye was covered with an enormous burn scar, which the sunset light threw into terrible relief. Nausea coiled in her stomach, but her heart became a fluttering bird-- a bird the size of a pelican, which threatened to tear up all her careful composure, because  _ she knew his face _ .

“Zuko?” 

“Mai?” 

He looked at her and his right eye widened. Mai’s hand flew to her mouth, to keep in any word that might have betrayed how she felt. 

“It  _ is  _ you,” he said. “I came out here looking for you.” 

“You did?” Mai lowered her hand. She resolved not to smile nor to frown. Zuko was practically a stranger to her, after all. 

A stranger, as long as she could forget the secret passages they’d found, and the way his eyes had colored deep gold when he smiled...

“I’m surprised you remember me,” she said. 

“How could I forget you?” he asked, and the fluttering in her chest started up again. He added, “When Azula told me two friends helped her take down Ba Sing Se, I knew you were one of them.” 

He was doing something strange with his hands. His right hand was held tightly in his left, both palms turned inward. Almost like he wanted to reach for her, but didn’t dare touch.

“ _ Go ahead, touch _ ,” whispered a deep sorrow within Mai. “ _ It won’t make any difference _ .” 

Mai meant to say, “ _ I am honored to help the princess _ ,” to remind Zuko that her first loyalty was due to Azula, to keep barriers between them, but instead when Mai opened her mouth she said, “You flatter me.” 

A hint of a smile played at the corners of Zuko’s mouth. “You were always better with knives than I was with firebending,” he said. “I know you.” 

Mai didn’t know what to say. She looked down at the hems of her sleeves. More than ever before, she tried to will a black mark to appear on the edges of her fingers. Something to give her hope. A reason to touch him. “I…” she looked up into his face again, and whatever she was going to say fled from her mind. That scar… and yet she could still recognize the boy he had been. She could see the man he was becoming. 

This wasn’t  _ fair _ , damn it all, it wasn’t  _ right  _ that he could do this to her. She had no soul mark, so it couldn’t be  _ him _ ...

“I know, it’s hideous,” he said, lifting his hand to the edge of his scar. “But I’m… used to it, mostly.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said. 

“You’ve grown up well,” he said, gesturing to her. Again, with his left hand. 

“Nothing has changed,” she replied drily. “You haven’t missed much.” 

“I heard you have a baby brother,” Zuko offered. 

“Well, yes,  _ that _ ,” Mai said, and was rewarded with the sight of Zuko’s smile. She told herself sternly, don’t get used to this feeling. “Mom and Dad were very happy when Tom-Tom came along, I can assure you.” She exhaled. She could talk. She could do this. “The aristocracy in the Fire Nation Capitol are the same. Gossips and peacocks, obsessed with status and looks. The war is always out there-- well, I guess we won that,” she added, and looked down to cover her confusion, “so that has changed… but Ember Island is exactly as it was when you left. They still butcher  _ Love Amongst the Dragons _ .” 

“You remember,” he said. 

“Of course. I even have the same hairstyle,” she gestured to her  _ odango _ . “Not much has changed,” she repeated, to finish. “You’ll feel right at home when we return.” 

Zuko’s smile had faded. “Right at home, huh?” he asked. “Lately I’ve been wondering--” his eyes skimmed over her shoulder, to something far away, “-- if home isn’t so much about where you are, as it is about the people you’re with.” 

Mai felt a bit irritated. Here she was, making an effort to be polite and shallow, and Zuko was… what? Was he trying to be intimate? To be honest with her? That wasn’t what Mai had come out here for. She  _ would  _ take their conversation back to idle chitchat. They simply could not open their hearts to one another. Zuko must have a soulmate out there somewhere, and Mai was not it. 

She shook her head. “You mustn’t talk philosophically. No one in polite society talks with any sense.” 

“I spent three years at sea,” Zuko replied, “I’m hardly fit for polite society anymore.” And there was some coldness there. She’d irritated him. Good. Let him save heart-to-heart talks for his soulmate. Lucky stiff, whoever they were.

Then his gaze focused on her shoulder. “Your hair-- it’s asymmetrical,” he said, and he reached out with his right hand towards her. She glanced down-- one of her black tails fell down her back. She froze when Zuko took the lock and guided it carefully over her right shoulder, and then let it drop.

“You’re still a gentle kid,” Mai said, half to herself, and then she looked down. Zuko’s right hand still was outstretched between them. The palm was facing up-- the palm and fingers filled in with a black soul mark. But even as Mai looked, even as her heart sank, colors began to flood the mark. Berry red and flame-heart blue, and fire-lily orange and even a stripe of hydrangea purple. 

Mai’s scalp itched. Her mouth went dry. She fumbled to hold out the tail of her hair that Zuko had just touched-- color filled the black in long stripes, like the lifeline on Zuko’s palm. 

Mai’s heart beat so hard, so loud, she was sure Zuko could hear it. She swallowed hard, trying to compose herself, trying to comprehend what had happened-- she could almost control the earth shattering within her, until she looked at Zuko’s face. He brought his hand-- his miraculously colored hand-- to cup her cheek and said in a hoarse whisper, “I hoped it would be you.” 

Mai couldn’t stand it. She hid her face in his hand and bit her lip, and when Zuko’s arm wrapped around her she leaned into him. She took a deep breath. “Years now, for years, everyone thought I didn’t have a soul mark.” 

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

“Don’t be,” she said, and she drew back a little and traced the line of his chin with her fingertips. “It’s better now. Much better.”

The dinner bell sounded, and Mai drew apart from Zuko, only to link her arm through his. “Let’s go in, shall we?” 

  
  


They entered the dining room together. Mai saw that Ty Lee and Azula glanced over at her, and then did a double take, focusing on the stripe of color in Mai’s hair. 

For once, the princess was speechless. Ty Lee clapped her hands together in glee. “Mai! Your soulmate! You  _ do  _ have a soul mark!” She pointed from Zuko to Mai and back again. 

“That’s enough, Ty Lee,” said Azula. She unfolded the napkin and set it on her lap. “Well, Mai, I’m very happy for you. And Zuko, of course. Now the two of you match-- you’re both asymmetrical.” 

Mai felt Zuko stiffen beside her. She tightened her grip on his arm, and said in a flat but clear voice, “Symmetry is overrated.” 

Azula, eyebrows raised, turned to  _ look  _ at Mai then. Her eyes scanned Mai up and down, as if to detect any true defiance in her. But she wouldn’t find any. Mai kept her face calm and blank. She tugged Zuko’s arm and looked, for all the world, as though touching her soulmate was an act of the utmost tedium. And Mai kept that expression on her face until she and Zuko sat down, until Azula finally looked away. 

Zuko looked at Mai with an expression bordering on distrust. Her sudden coldness confused him. 

Then Mai leaned in close to Zuko. Softly, she said, “There’s nothing to fear. We’re together now.” She sat up straight again, but her left hand strayed and took Zuko’s right. His hand was very warm in hers. She could almost feel the colors of his soul mark bleeding into her heart. His thumb began to trace small circles on her knuckle, and she felt at once secure, loved, and confident. She held her head up a little taller, that the stripes of her soul mark might catch the light. And she held Zuko’s hand, firmly intending to never let him go. 

Epilogue

A few days later, the Fire Nation aristos were returning to the homeland. Azula and Ty Lee sunned themselves on the port side of the deck, while Mai and Zuko sat under a wide parasol at starboard. They sat very close together, looking over the palm of Zuko’s hand and Mai’s right-side ponytail. 

“This red,” said Zuko, pointing, “that’s just the color of mulled brightberry juice-- my favorite.”

“I thought you were a coffee fan, like your father,” Mai said. 

Zuko shook his head. A shadow fell over his expression. Seeing it, Mai traced an orange teardrop on the base of his thumb. “This is the color of your fire,” she said. 

“And it’s matched here,” Zuko said, tracing Mai’s ponytail down her shoulder. “Alongside a stripe of white.” 

“My favorite color,” Mai said thoughtfully. She caught Zuko’s astounded glance, and she clarified: “Not to  _ wear _ . But it’s flat and empty. And it goes so well with black.” 

“ _ That  _ makes sense,” Zuko had to admit. “Does this color mean anything to you?” He tapped the blue that rested on the pad of his index finger. 

“At my uncle’s house, he grows these blue irises. I guess I’m pretty fond of them,” Mai said. She laced her fingers through his. “That’s enough colors for now. I’m bored.” 

“Wait, no, I haven’t puzzled out the meaning of that green yet.” 

“Zuko,” Mai reminded him with a little smile, “we have time.”

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: For dramatic, artistic purposes, I imagine Mai’s soul mark extends all the way up her ponytail, to her odango, and even partly to her forehead. When I reviewed her hairstyle I realized her soul mark may be smaller and less visible than that, but you know what? The aesthetic beats all.
> 
> Also, I imagine Ty Lee’s soul mark is a pair of handprints set at her waist, as someone might touch her while dancing. Ty Lee keeping her midriff bare is then an act of hope and pride.
> 
> This fic includes references to a couple of my favorite fics-- A Harvest of Eight Leaves by maguena1, on fanfic, & Three Years at Sea, which is on this Archive but is sadly orphaned.
> 
> If anyone wants to write more in this AU, let me know and I'll probably say yes.


End file.
